Forest of Shadows
by Noofle
Summary: S1 Ep3. The Doctor, Brittany and Cap'n Jack find themselves stranded in Wales, but not all is as it seems. Between a mysterious illness and contact with the locals, the TARDIS crew have to contend with an old friend...or rather, enemy.
1. Time, Brilliant Complex Time

**A/N: Welcome, once again, to another installment in my Doctor Who saga. This is Episode 3 of my series, so all you people who are skipping ahead should go back and read the others first...or not. Doesn't bother me. So, this story stars the Doctor, Jack Harkness and my companion, Brittany Harvey, and an old enemy that you may recognise. Read on, review, and most of all, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or Torchwood.....but I'm on rather good terms with the Doctor. The wonders a bit of banana bread can do.**

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SERIES ONE: EPISODE THREE

FOREST OF SHADOWS

**CHAPTER ONE: TIME, BRILLIANT COMPLEX TIME**

In the Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy, a number of planets revolved around a yellow-orange star known to the inhabitants of that solar system as Sol, or simply, the Sun. There was more than one life-bearing planet in that system, but the third planet out from the sun, a blue-green orb, was the home of a race barely a few thousand years old. They called themselves humans, and the planet was known as Earth.

While they weren't one of the most technologically advanced species in the galaxy, or indeed their portion of it, they were certainly one of the loudest. Every day, messages and probes and satellites were sent out from the Earth, and many alien races had noticed them. They had been invaded by many of these aliens, but the humans on the surface of the planet were mostly ignorant of this fact. All these invasion attempts had been thwarted by one man. Or, if you want to get technical, one alien.

And yet, even though Earth and the human race had been invaded by species such as the Daleks, Cybermen, Sycorax, Slitheen, Pyroviles and Racnoss, just to name a few, there was more bad news to come.

For a great entity, spanning across a thousand timelines, and mentioned in the cultures of a thousand worlds, had its attention focused on the Earth. However, it was different from many of the other aliens that had set their attentions on that particular planet, for it was neither interested in the planet itself, nor the humans that inhabited it. It was after only one thing, the one reason why humans had survived so long, the one being that had saved the Earth, and indeed the universe, time and time again.

It was after a Time Lord, and no power in the whole of creation was going to stop it.

* * *

On the blue-green planet known as Earth, in the city of Cardiff, Wales, a member of the human race called for another drink.

"Ianto, could you bring me another cup of coffee? This one has gone cold!"

After he heard the affirmative reply, Captain Jack Harkness settled back into his chair. The ex-Time agent and con man whistled a little tune to himself to take his mind off how tired he was. It was probably about one in the morning, but Jack refused to sleep. Ianto Jones had decided to stay up with him, if only to keep the captain company and make him the occasional coffee.

Sometimes Jack wished for a normal job, with a normal routine, but knew that it could never happen. His team needed him too much. Cardiff needed him too much. That was one of the downsides about working at Torchwood; it may be separate from the government and beyond the United Nations, but you could never get a god damned night of sleep.

Jack roused himself when he noticed that he was beginning to doze off. He mentally shook himself. This project was his top priority, not sleep. That could come later. While he worked out the aches in his neck and shoulders, the captain pulled up some displays on the screen in front of him.

"Damned Cardiff," he muttered, irritated by the lack of sleep and the lack of leads on his current project. He pulled at the leather band around his wrist to ease an itch, but paused and looked down when the itch grew into a tingle, and then to a burn. He shook his head. Either his eyes were playing tricks on him, or the leather wristband was glowing a faint yellow-orange colour.

When Ianto walked ten seconds later, Jack had disappeared.

* * *

Across the stars, on a planet far away from Earth, a Time Lord and his human companion sprinted down a corridor, a horde of bug-like aliens thundering after them, chittering in rage. For the Doctor and Brittany, it had started out as a fun outing, visiting a new planet on the other side of the galaxy. But the Doctor, not being able to resist the urge, had found the need to make a rude comment about the rubbishness of certain beings.

Now a ravaging mob of carnivorous aliens was after them, all because the insect-like Ma'ark weren't to the Doctor's highly advanced Time Lord tastes. Brittany shook her head as she ran. Sometimes she wondered why she continued to travel with him.

The Doctor had the TARDIS key clutched in his hand as if his life depended on it. Well, in fact, it did. He grabbed Brittany's arm and, rapidly changing direction, dragged her down a side passage. She gave a gasp of surprise, but her legs continued running even though her thoughts skipped a few beats.

The Ma'ark's clawed feet skidded across the shiny floor as they struggled to turn around and follow their prey. Once they had righted themselves, they caught a glimpse of the Doctor slamming the door shut to what appeared to be a blue wooden box with the words, 'police box, public call' written across the top.

Inside the TARDIS, Brittany and the Doctor looked at each other triumphantly, then suddenly burst out laughing. "You're a bit rubbish," the Doctor roared, gasping for breath.

"You should have seen their faces when you said that," Brittany replied, tears running down her face.

The Doctor doubled over in response, hanging onto the console for support. "They're all kind of short and gooey!"

"And pointy."

"And the wrong colour."

"Don't get your antennae in a knot!"

The Doctor paused. "Did I really say that?" Brittany nodded, still laughing hysterically. He shrugged and pulled a pained expression. Leaving Brittany to work the rest of the laughter out of her system, he began fiddling with the console, setting their next destination. The TARDIS hummed pleasantly beneath his fingers as he flicked switches and spun knobs with expert precision.

Brittany, having extracted all the possible humour from the situation, appeared by his side. "So," she said, slightly out of breath. "Where are we off to next?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I don't know." The Doctor shrugged. "I was going to let you choose." Seeing Brittany's shocked expression, he quickly added, "Only if you want to, of course."

"Of course I want to!" she exclaimed. "What have I got to choose from?"

The Doctor smiled, and gripped the handbrake. "Try, the whole of creation."


	2. Interference

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who.....but wizards have lazers.

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CHAPTER TWO: INTERFERENCE

When his vision cleared, Jack's first thought was that he was going to throw up. Once he suppressed that urge, his second thought ran something along the lines of 'where the hell am I?' He voiced this concern out loud, but the tree that he was hanging upside down in by his feet didn't provide him with an answer. It took him a couple of moments to realise that he was actually upside down, and once he did, his third thought consisted of a number of unprintable swearwords from various cultures and time periods. It turned out that he had quite a wide repertoire, and it took him several minutes to finish voicing his feelings. Of course, once he had, he unhooked his feet from the tree and fell to the forest floor with a loud thump.

Staggering to his feet and standing the right way up had improved his sense of direction, but he had still not had his second thought answered. He was obviously in a forest somewhere, hence the trees, but where that forest was, he had no idea. The stars that were visible through the canopy were familiar to Jack, so he was still close to Cardiff. Also, the trees in the forest were varieties normally found in the United Kingdom, so he wasn't that far from home. He checked his wristwatch. 1:30 am. Great. He was stuck out in the middle of a forest somewhere, in the middle of the night and, just to put the icing on the cake, it was pouring down with rain. The captain was completely saturated.

A quick check revealed that his wristband had returned to its normal colour, but its time travelling and teleporting abilities had been disabled. And he's left his mobile phone back in Cardiff. So, that left him stranded in the middle of a forest until whatever had transported him here decided to transport him back. Well, wherever he was, exploring the countryside seemed like a good a plan as any.

* * *

The Doctor stepped out into the rain, squinting at the pieces of starry sky visible between the tree branches. Brittany followed him, quietly closing the doors behind her.

"This doesn't look like the New New York you've told me so much about," she commented, wrapping her coat tighter over her shoulders. "It's bucketing down with rain. And the TARDIS isn't meant to glow like that, is it?"

The Doctor didn't look at her. As soon as he'd punched in a destination and hit the handbrake, the TARDIS had starting glowing gold. "Nup."

"So, have you got any idea where we've landed."

"Not really." The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "It's Earth, that much is obvious, but where?"

Brittany groaned. "Earth, again?"

"Yeah," the Doctor replied. "That much is obvious. The only question now is where? And how? And why? And who? And possibly what."

"Why what?"

"What?"

"Why did you say what?"

The Doctor scratched his head. "Uh, what as in – "

"What the hell is going on here?"

He turned to face the direction the irritated voice had come from, and gave the approaching figure a curt nod. "Captain."

"Doctor."

Jack embraced the skinny Time Lord in a bone-breaking hug. "Look, I understand you are just dying to see me, but you could just come to Cardiff. There is no reason to drag me out into the middle of nowhere for a reunion."

"You too huh?" The Doctor glanced at the TARDIS. "Whatever brought us here, it wasn't me."

"Where is here anyway?"

The Doctor checked the stars again. "Judging by that constellation there, I'd have to say England or Wales." He grinned at Jack. "If there's a problem, it's going to be here."

Brittany cleared her throat and gave Jack a little wave. "Hello? It's unlike Jacky-boy not to want to give me a hug."

"Brittany?" Jack said, startled when she grabbed him around the middle. He wrapped his arms around her, and shot the Doctor a questioning glance. The Time Lord shrugged, and mouthed, 'it's been four years.'

Jack grimaced and released Brittany. "I think you might have cracked a rib," he complained, massaging his chest.

She punched him in the shoulder playfully. "Oh, I'm sure you'll be alright."

The Doctor frowned. "Are you done? Because I'd really like to find out why we're here, and reverse it, so I can get back to what I was doing."

Jack smiled at him. "Yeah, sure. All done." Brittany shrugged.

"Good," the Doctor said, folding his arms. "The way I see it, we have three options. One, we can stand out here in the pouring rain and argue. Personally, I think that is a stupid idea, 'cause I'll end up catching a cold, and be bedridden for a week. The second option is that we go back to the TARDIS and discuss what happened over a nice cup of tea."

"Or coffee," Jack added.

The Doctor nodded in agreement. "Yes, or coffee, depending on your tastes. Actually, I have some first grade hot chocolate from New Brazil. Delightful place. I met some rather lovely jungle cats."

"But what about option three?"

Jack turned to look at Brittany. "What about it? I'm all for that cup of coffee."

Brittany ignored him, and instead rounded on the Doctor. "You better start explaining option three mister, and it better not involve slogging through the mud looking for trouble."

The Time Lord pulled nervously at his ear lobe. "I should probably keep quiet then."

Jack sighed. "What is option three?"

"Um, it involves slogging through the mud, looking for trouble."

The two humans looked at each other, and groaned in unison. "Great. That is just great."


	3. Seeing Double

**A/N: Sorry that I haven't updated for a while. I kind of got distracted. Yeah...so, here's the next two chapters. Please enjoy.

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CHAPTER THREE: SEEING DOUBLE

Sandra peered out through the windscreen of her car, squinting past the sheets of water spraying out from underneath the windscreen wipers. Trees flashed by the road, half-obscured by the rain. The vehicle's headlights hardly illuminated five metres of the road in front of the car; beyond that, it was darkness.

Sandra changed the gear a little too sharply, but she hardly noticed. She was far too busy reliving the events of the past few days. A couple of days ago, on Tuesday, she had driven into Cardiff like usual, to start her working week. Her job was fairly simple; she was a scientific consultant to the biological sciences section of a university in the city. She got to do experiments and work on science projects. It was a fairly easy job, paid well and was definitely never boring.

But of course, she didn't have a job, not any more. She'd been fired. All she had done was walk in when she wasn't supposed to, and see something she wasn't meant to see. Sandra wasn't worried yet; she could easily find another job with her qualifications. She was angry, angry at her boss, angry with the university and, most of all, angry with herself.

Whatever she wasn't meant to see must have been important if it had gotten her fired, but the thing was, she couldn't actually remember what she'd seen. She could remember opening the door to one of the labs, but her next memory was of walking down the hallway to the office for the head of the science division.

It was as if large portions of her memory had just been wiped clean, but whatever had done the wiping hadn't been very thorough. There were still snippets of information that she could recall.

There had been a gurney of some kind in the science lab, but she couldn't quite make out who or what had been on it. There had been three people she hadn't recognised, but she couldn't remember any faces. One of them had forcefully pushed her out of the room, a man, as she recalled.

Sandra shook her head ruefully. She couldn't remember, and she probably never would. No use dwelling on it. What she needed to do right now was find a new job so she could keep paying off the mortgage. The bills don't pay themselves, as her mother used to say.

Her eyes had been wandering around the interior of the car, so she resolutely locked her vision back onto the road. She spotted the three figures almost too late, and slammed on the brakes, her car fishtailing wildly on the wet surface of the road.

* * *

Captain Jack was the first to notice the car roaring along the road towards them. Thinking quickly, he went to grab Brittany and drag her into the bushes. However, the Doctor had already pulled her into the bushes on the other side of the road. All three pressed themselves flat into the undergrowth as the car swerved past, tyres squealing as they sought traction on the wet tarmac. There was a crash as the car slid off the road and into a tree, and captain Jack and the Doctor were off and running before Brittany had a chance to react to being roughly thrown into the bushes.

The Doctor was the first to reach the crash, and was relieved to see that it didn't look too bad. The bonnet of the car had a considerable dent in it, but other than that, the vehicle was undamaged. The driver's door opened, and a tall, auburn-haired woman fought her way out of the car. Both Jack and the Doctor rushed over to help her to her feet, but she brushed both of them off.

"What the hell were you thinking?" she shouted, placing both her hands on her hips haughtily.

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. "We didn't see you coming, that's all. Actually, we're kind of lost."

"I can see that," Sandra said, surveying the damage done to her car. It was just one more disaster to add to her growing list. "Looks like we'll have to walk."

"Walk?" Brittany queried curiously, having dragged herself out of the bushes. "Where?"

"To the nearest town," Sandra said, grabbing her personal belongings out of her car. "You lot can come with me, since you have nowhere else to go. Unless you want to have a go at that Welsh forest yonder." She pointed at the trees across the road.

"Wales," the Doctor muttered. "At least that's one mystery solved."

Sandra continued, oblivious to the Doctor's strange comment. "Anyway, it's only a ten minute walk down the road. It's not that far out of the way."

Brittany groaned, but the Doctor smiled cheerfully. "Love a good walk, me. By the way, what's your name?"

Sandra gave the Time Lord a quick glance; taking in the brown suit and coat, muddy white trainers and idiotic expression. "Smith," she said, sticking her hands in her pockets. "Sandra Smith."

Brittany groaned again as the others set off up the road. "Great. Now there are two of you."

"Nice to meet you Sandra Smith," captain Jack said with a disarming smile. "Captain Jack Harkness." He offered his hand, and Sandra shook it reluctantly.

Brittany jogged to catch up to the Doctor. "I'm Brittany Harvey," she said with a little wave. Sandra raised an eyebrow, then turned to the Doctor.

"And you are?" she asked.

"Me?" The Doctor pointed to himself with a grin. "I'm the Doctor. Pleased to meet you."

"And that's Doctor…"

He shook his head. "Just the Doctor."

Sandra shrugged. "Alright Doctor, tell me. What are you three doing out here in the middle of the night?"

"We're lost."

"Doctor, you can't lie to a liar. So, tell me truthfully, what are you doing here?"

This time, it was Jack who answered. "We are well and truly lost. We have absolutely no damn idea of where the hell we are, and all we want to do is get home. Is that a good enough explanation for you?"

"Someone's tetchy," the Doctor whispered to Jack.

"I haven't had enough coffee to deal with being yanked into the middle of nowhere," Jack replied.

"Fair enough," the Doctor said with a grin.

Sandra glanced between the two men, trying to tell if they were lying or not. "So you're telling me that you have absolutely no idea of where you are?"

"That's exactly it." Jack said. "Doctor?"

The Time Lord frowned at the captain. "Yes Jack."

"Do you happen to have any coffee in those pockets of yours?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"Pity."

"Yeah."

There was a very long silence, broken only by the sound of the raindrops pattering on the road.

"Sandra?"

"Jack?"

"Do you happen to have any coffee?"


	4. Over a Cup of Coffee

**CHAPTER FOUR: OVER A CUP OF COFFEE**

Leaves slapped at the windows of Sandra's kitchen, squealing as they scraped along the wet glass. Jack had found some coffee, and was currently sitting on the kitchen bench, a thick mug clutched in his hands.

The Doctor, Brittany and Sandra were ignoring Jack's caffeine splurge, and had sat themselves down at the dining table.

"I had a job until this morning," Sandra explained, sipping from her cup of tea. "But they fired me."

"Fired? Why?" Brittany asked, watching captain Jack out of the corner of her eye. He drained one full cup of coffee, and was busy pouring himself a second one from the pot.

Sandra sighed. "I saw something I wasn't meant to see."

The Doctor pulled his eyes away from the photos on a bookshelf in the living room. "What did you see?" he asked, suddenly interested.

Sandra thought hard about her answer, before she replied. "I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?" the Doctor said with a frown.

Sandra shrugged. "I just don't know."

Jack drained his cup for the second time, and wandered over to the table. "Where did you work?"

"This university in Cardiff." She saw Jack's carefully neutral expression. "Why? Is it important?"

"No, no." Jack shook his head. "I was just curious."

The Doctor drained his cup of tea. "Sandra? Could I use your bathroom?"

Sandra pointed to her left, still giving Jack a curious look. "Yeah. Go up the stairs, first door on the right."

The Doctor thanked her and left the table. "Y'know," Jack said, breaking the silence. "That's the first time since I've met him that he's needed to use a bathroom."

"He's probably fixing his hair," Brittany muttered, not really paying attention.

Jack nodded. "Yeah," he stated, staring at where the Doctor had been sitting. "Still, no matter. Do you have a phone I could borrow?" he asked, directing the question at Sandra.

"Yeah," she replied absently, pulling a mobile phone from her pocket and chucking it at Jack. The captain caught it and flipped it open, quickly dialling a number.

* * *

The Doctor glanced at himself in the mirror, and promptly frowned. His hair was sopping wet, pressed down flat against his forehead unstylishly. He carefully swept it to the side, making sure that he looked presentable. He smiled, and turned to leave the bathroom, when he crumpled up and hit the floor. It was a struggle for him to get back to his feet, and once he did, he had to use the bathroom sink for support. A splitting headache was threatening to break out of the confines of his skull, while nausea and blurry vision left him disorientated and confused.

It felt like he had been poisoned, but he couldn't feel it in his system. It was more of a psychological injury than anything else; like a poison of the mind. The source was too foreign for the Doctor to identify, but he knew it wasn't from Earth. That could only mean that some kind of alien was affecting him in this way. He had to get to the TARDIS. Whatever was attacking his mind was dangerous, and the TARDIS would be able to block it.

With a Herculean effort, the Doctor leapt at the door of the bathroom, his fingers brushing it on the way to the floor. The breath exploded from his lungs, and he lay on the tiled floor for several seconds, winded, attempting to catch his breath. The Time Lord grabbed at the doorknob, and used it to pull himself to his feet. The door swung open under his wait, and he found himself on the floor again.

It had taken the Doctor barely five steps to get from the staircase to the bathroom, but now, he could barely see the floor in front of his face due to the spots swimming across his vision. Something wasn't right. He needed to warn Brittany and Jack.

Once again, he got to his feet and began staggering down the hallway, arms spread wide for balance. His head was reeling from the nausea and darkness was starting to creep across the edges of his vision.

"Must…warn…Jack!" he growled, focusing all of his attention on the end of the hallway. He practically fell down the first three steps before he righted himself. The next few steps were tricky, and his vision was growing fuzzier at an alarming rate. Knowing that trying to get down the stairs by himself would be far too dangerous, the Doctor steadied himself using the railing and called for help.

At first, he tried to call for Brittany, but he stumbled over syllables, and all that came out was a garbled mess. Changing his tactics, the Doctor chose the name that was easier to say.

"Jack!" he shouted desperately, before the darkness took him, and he collapsed and tumbled the rest of the way down the stairs.

Hearing first the call, and then the thumps as the Doctor fell down the staircase, Jack dropped Sandra's phone, and rushed to aid the Time Lord. When he reached the foot of the stairs, he found the Doctor lying face down on the floor, unmoving. Jack feared the worst until he rolled the alien over and saw that his chest was rising and falling with each shallow breath.

Brittany ran in, and crouched next to Jack. "What happened? Is he okay?"

"I don't know, but we should probably get him into a bed." Noticing Sandra standing in the doorway, he added, "Do you have a bed we can put him in?"

She nodded. "Yes. Go up the stairs and down to the end of the hall. You get him up there; I'll go get a doctor."

"No!" Jack growled, "no doctors."

"That man is sick," Sandra said angrily. "He needs medical help, so I'm going to get a doctor." She grabbed her coat off the hatstand next to her, and stormed out of the front door, slamming it shut as she left. Jack shook his head, and helped Brittany hoist the Doctor up the stairs.


	5. Disappearing Goats

**CHAPTER FIVE: DISAPPEARING GOATS**

The rain was coming down heavier now, but Sean was still working. Barely fifteen minutes ago, he had watched Sandra walking home with three strangers in tow. He just hoped that she wouldn't do anything rash, as she could be a rather headstrong individual. A few minutes after she had passed by his house, Sean had heard a commotion out in his paddock, and had gone to investigate.

Of course, he wasn't that young any more, so it had taken him a few minutes to find his raincoat and gumboots, and another couple of minutes to get out into the paddock, but once he was there, he found something that he couldn't explain.

Some of his fences had been torn down, and two of his goats were wandering around along the edge of the forest that bordered his farm. Five other goats remained inside the paddock, but it was obvious they were going to make a break for the freedom of the forest. That left three goats unaccounted for.

Ignoring the goats, Sean went to check on his chicken coop. That was when he found something really strange. One of the sides of his wooden chicken coop had been opened up like a sardine can, but there was no debris on the ground or inside the coop itself. While the hole wasn't circular, its sides were completely smooth; not even a splinter was out of place.

Running his fingers along the rim of the hole one last time, he did a check on how many hens he had left. Sean recounted a number of times, but the answer remained the same. There were only two chickens left.

The break in couldn't have been done by any local animals, so Sean decided that it must be the work of humans. "Young ruffians," he decided, still staring at the damaged henhouse in disbelief. "When I found out who did this, they're going to find out about all the different uses for…" Sean trailed off.

For a moment there, he was sure he could hear something hissing.

He shook his head, and turned away from the chicken coop, intending to round up his goats, but stopped dead in his tracks as he scanned the paddock.

The goats were gone. Vanished into thin air. He hadn't heard anyone in the field, and the goats hadn't had enough time to get out of his sight. Sean glanced over his shoulder worriedly, and when he looked back, he was sure that the shadows looked more…substantial…than before.

"What?" he muttered, sure his eyes were playing tricks on him. He stared at his field for a full minute, but his goats failed to reappear. Sean was starting to think that maybe this wasn't ruffians stealing his animals.

Aliens. It had to be aliens. A couple of years ago, that would have sounded mad, but nowadays, it was easily believable. Especially when living so close to Cardiff. Sean started to slowly back toward the house, scanning the dark, wet field for any sign of movement.

There was a crash from behind him, so he spun around and strained his eyes against the pouring rain. There was nothing there, nothing moving apart from the trees whipping around in the wind.

The attack came from the side. Sean never had a chance to run.

* * *

"Doctor Green! Open up!" Sandra yelled, pounding on the door of an old, dilapidated house. When no answer was forthcoming, Sandra kicked the door in frustration. This was an emergency, and they needed a doctor.

She tried the door, but found it locked, so she tried the window, and found it open. Ignoring the possible consequences, she climbed in the window, still shouting for doctor Green.

"Green, I need you help!" Though shouting, she still padded silently down an immaculately clean hallway. "I know you're here, because your shoes are still on the front porch."

She pushed on the wood of a door leading off the dimly lit hallway, and it opened with a loud creak. That noise, however, was not enough to mask the sound of a shotgun being loaded.

"Put your hands up, and turn around slowly."

Sandra folded her arms with a sigh and spun around to confront the man behind her. "Robert Green, how dare you point a gun at me! There's a sick man that needs your help, and you're busy shoving a shotgun in my face!" She wrested the shotgun out of the short, burly man's slack grip, and pulled the single shell out of the weapon.

"Sandra?" Robert asked, watching as she discarded his weapon. "I didn't realise it was you."

"Yeah, well, that much is obvious. Why do you even have a shotgun?"

"Thieves?"

Sandra shook her head. "Out here? Not likely." She pushed the man down the hall. "Go grab your medical gear and get yourself over to my house."

"Yes ma'am," Green muttered, running off to collect his medical equipment.

* * *

Jack and Brittany were sitting on the two chairs in the Doctor's room, keeping a close on the comatose Time Lord. He hadn't moved at all since they'd found him at the bottom of the stairs, and the only indication that he was alive at all was the steady rise and fall of his chest.

Jack stood up and started pacing. He felt helpless, cooped up inside a strange house with an unconscious Doctor and a 38th century girl who he barely knew. All he had wanted to do was find the Doctor and have a quick chat about what was going on. The Time Lord had been wounded by the loss of Donna, although he was very good at hiding it. And Jack still felt a little bit guilty about leaving the alien on his own.

But now, Jack just wanted to get back to Cardiff without a life or death fight with an alien creature. He knew that this kind of situation was inevitable when hanging around the Doctor, but it had been bare minutes before they had gotten into trouble. Just look at what had happened to the Time Lord!

Jack sat back down on his chair. Maybe he'd had just a little bit too much coffee.

Sandra burst into the room seconds later, a short, stocky, brown-haired man in tow. He was lugging a couple of bags with him, which looked completely saturated from the rain outside. Jack immediately leapt up to help him with his load.

"Captain Jack Harkness," he said with a smile, taking one of the bags off the short man.

"Robert Green," the man replied, staring in surprise at Jack's period clothing. "I'm the, uh, town's doctor."

"I'm Brittany Harvey," Brittany said from her chair, still staring sullenly at the Doctor.

Robert nodded at her. "I assume that this is the patient?" he said, gesturing towards the Doctor. "Would you like to tell me what happened?"

Jack pursed his lips, Green's bag still hanging from his hand. Sandra glared at him, but the stare produced no discernable results.

"He just collapsed," she said, watching as Robert started to empty equipment out of his bags. "He left the room, and just collapsed without warning."

"Has he had any history of this?" Robert asked, clipping a stethoscope into his ears.

Sandra shrugged, and turned to Jack.

The captain shrugged. "Not that I know of," he said, sitting back down in his chair with a sigh.

"Okay then," Robert muttered, rubbing the stethoscope on his shirt. "We'll just have to find out."

He knelt down by the bed, unbuttoning first the Doctor's suit and then his shirt. He placed the stethoscope on his patient's chest, listening in silence for a few long seconds. Then he looked at Jack.

"What the hell?"


	6. Two Doctors

**CHAPTER SIX: TWO DOCTORS**

"What the hell is going on here?" Green repeated, stethoscope still pressed against the alien's chest.

Jack sighed again, and stared at the rain sheeting down the outside of the window. "It's complicated."

"Oh that's cold!"

Robert leapt backwards as the Doctor sat up with a start. The Time Lord smiled pleasantly at the shocked people in the room as he buttoned up his suit. "Well, hello there," he said happily, grinning at Robert. "I'm the Doctor."

Green took a few steps back. "What are you?"

The Doctor waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, that's not important. What is important is that everyone is in grave danger."

"Grave danger?" Jack asked, standing up. "What kind of grave danger?"

"The fatal kind," the Time Lord replied, swinging his legs out over the side of the bed. "It wants me out of the way, and that's generally not a good sign."

"How do you know all this?" Brittany asked, still seated in her chair. "How can you know all this?"

"Because it's in here," the Doctor said, tapping a slender finger against the side of his head. "It's inside my head, I can feel it." He grinned wildly. "And boy, is it angry."

"Angry? What's angry?"

The Doctor answered the captain's question with a yawn. "Well, you'd be angry to if you – if you…if you…" The Doctor shook his head. "What were we talking about?" he glanced around the room in alarm. "Where the hell am I?"

All four humans stared at him, slack-jawed. "What are you going on about Doctor?" Jack asked, mouth ajar.

The Doctor pointed an accusing finger at the captain. "You're behind this aren't you? Are these your little prankster buddies?" The Time Lord glared at everyone in turn. "Whatever the joke is here, I have to say, I am not finding it remotely funny."

Robert put his mouth to Sandra's ear, and whispered something almost silently. "Delusional," he said.

The Doctor jumped off the bed so fast that everyone else took an involuntary step backwards. "Delusional? DELUSIONAL!" he exploded, pointing a shaky finger at Green. "Did you just say delusional?"

"No, I –" Robert stammered, but the Doctor cut him off.

"I will not stand for this," the Time Lord roared, taking a step towards Robert. "I am – I am – I am…" He trailed off, staring at the ceiling in confusion.

There was a long silence, during which only the patter of raindrops on the roof and the Doctor's ragged breathing could be heard. Suddenly and without warning, the Doctor doubled over in pain, an expression of raw agony on his face.

"No!" he screamed, "no, no, no, no, NO!!" He stumbled drunkenly to his right, hands clutching at his head. "I won't let you!"

Then, the alien froze, and lifted his head up. He looked at Robert with a mad glint in his eye, one of his hands reaching out for the stocky man. The he snatched his arm back as if burnt. He blinked a couple of times; the dangerous look gone from his eyes. Jack ran forward to support the sagging Time Lord.

"I've got you," the captain said, catching the alien before he could collapse.

"There we go," the Doctor said shakily. "All better now." With a half-hearted grin, he gave Green an apologetic look. "Sorry about that, I was feeling a bit…delusional."

"That's an understatement," Jack muttered.

The Doctor looked at the captain. "Jack!" the Time Lord exclaimed, "I'd almost forgotten! There was something important I have to tell you." His brow furrowed, and it was obvious that he was deep in thought. "Ahah!" he pronounced with a snap of his fingers. "It's the farms. You have to go out to the farms."

Jack frowned. "Me? What, aren't you coming with me?"

The Doctor gave him a not-so-reassuring look. "Oh, probably not." He collapsed into Jack's arms without a fuss.

* * *

The closest of the farms was only a five-minute walk down the road, but the rain and mud were hampering Jack and Sandra's passage. Although he was trying to show it, Jack was very worried. Mostly about the Doctor's health, but also about the Doctor's words.

_Grave Danger._

What kind of grave danger? What could be so perilous that the normally danger-happy Time Lord was worried?

Sandra could see the worry on Jack's face, but he refused to respond to her attempts at comforting him. She still had absolutely no idea who he was, or who his two friends were. All she had was names, and names meant nothing. Really, who would call themselves 'the Doctor?' It was madness, and she wanted to be rid of it, but knew that it wouldn't happen. Whatever was going on, those three were involved, and now she was caught up in the mess they had brought with them.

It was going to be a long week.

"Jack?" she asked, dropping back from her lead position to match him step for step.

He glanced at her, before returning his gaze to the muddy ground in front of him. "Yeah?"

"I just want to say, your friend, he'll be alright. Whatever is happening to him, we'll get him through this."

Jack didn't even look at her. "Yeah," he repeated, a deep tiredness in his voice. "Of course we will."

"Jack, you can talk to me," Sandra said reassuringly, brushing her fingers against the taller man's sleeve. "If there's anything you need to talk about, I'm here."

Jack glared at her with his startlingly blue eyes. "You wouldn't understand," he growled, turning back to the path. Sandra prepared an appropriate retort, but before she could speak, the captain cut her off. "Is that the farm?"

Sandra glanced up ahead. "Yeah," she muttered darkly, leading the way towards the wooden building.

Jack rammed his hands into his pockets and followed her. The Doctor had told him to come out to the farms, but what did the Time Lord expect him to find out here? He was expecting to find some sheep, maybe a cow or two, but not much else. With a shrug to himself, the captain followed Sandra up to the door.

She rapped on it and, without waiting for an answer, turned the handle. The door refused to move. She knocked again, and waited impatiently for someone to come to the door. When no one did, she snorted angrily, and stomped off around the corner of the house.

"Where are you going?" Jack asked, trailing after her. "Planning on breaking in through a window?"

Sandra just rolled her eyes. "No," she scoffed, heading out into the muddy field behind the house. "He might be out with the animals."

Jack checked his watch. "It's two in the morning," he stated simply. "It's more than likely that he's just tucked up in bed fast asleep."

Sandra shrugged, and plodded out into the wet field. With a quiet sigh, Jack followed her. It was going to be a long night.

"Sean!" Sandra yelled, cupping her hands around her mouth. "Sean, it's Sandra. Are you here?" She walked further into the field, glancing around quickly. It was hard to make out anything in the pouring rain.

"Maybe he's not home?" Jack suggested, gazing at the farm buildings in boredom. He could think of hundreds of places he would rather be than in a soggy field, but didn't bother to tell Sandra that. She probably wouldn't have taken it well anyway.

"Where would he go?" Sandra pointed out. "The rain's a bit heavy for an early morning stroll, and besides, he hardly ever leaves the house. And where are all the goats?"

"Goats?" Jack gave her a confused look before retuning to her inspection of the grounds.

"Sean raises goats, but they're not here."

"Maybe he took them for an early morning walk in the pouring rain?"

Sandra glared at him. "Could you take this seriously? You don't just take your goats for a walk in the middle of the night, especially when the fences have been torn down." She turned away from the captain and peered through the rain, searching for any signs of where Sean might be. "We have to go have a look at the other farms." She turned back to Jack, but he was no longer there. Instead, he was about fifty metres away, standing next to a run down chicken coop.

"Have a look at this!" he called, retuning his attention to the homemade wooden building. Sandra jogged over to his side, and he showed her what he had been looking at.

On the side of the chicken coop was an enormous hole, easily an arm span across. What was strange was that the edges of the hole were completely smooth, as if the missing piece of wood had simply ceased to exist.

"I've seen this before," Jack muttered, suddenly very worried. "Come on, we've got to get back to the Doctor! If this is what I think it is, then we are going to need his help."

* * *

**A/N: Does anyone know what's going on yet? It's getting exciting (at last).**


	7. Too Dangerous

**CHAPTER SEVEN: TOO DANGEROUS**

Rain pattered against the window of the spare bedroom with no signs of letting up. After the Doctor's second collapse, Brittany and Robert had tucked him back into bed. The Time Lord hadn't moved since.

Green couldn't work out what was wrong with the alien, and thought it might be some kind of alien disease. Brittany knew it was some kind of alien influence, but whether it was a disease or not, she couldn't say. All she could do was wait for Jack to get back. He would know what to do. He knew the Doctor much better than she did.

Brittany had dragged her chair over to the window, and sat there with her head pressed against the glass. She had been travelling with the Doctor for the better part of six days, and they hadn't gone to one single place where disaster didn't break out. Danger just seemed to follow the Doctor like he was some kind of magnet. It was always there, just waiting for an opportunity to leap out of the shadows and drag you into it. Did the danger follow the Doctor, or did he follow the danger?

Before she could contemplate that question further, Brittany caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. It was only a flicker, but it was there none the less. There was definitely something outside, something stirring amongst the raindrops.

Green had noticed Brittany's stiffening, and looked at her curiously. "What is it?" he asked, still sitting next to the Doctor. "What's wrong?"

"Outside," murmured Brittany. "There is something outside."

"Sandra?"

Brittany shook her head. "Whatever it is, it's not human. It just doesn't look right."

"What do you mean by 'not human'?" Green looked worried. "Like an animal?"

"I wish that were true," Brittany muttered, then immediately leapt away from the window. Where there had just been empty space before, there was now a face glaring at her. It wasn't a human face; it was long and black, with two glowing eyes. "Shadow," Brittany breathed, backing further away from the window.

The creature screeched loudly, the glass rattling in its frame. A clawed hand came up, and tested the glass.

"Is the window locked?" Brittany whispered, her eyes not leaving the monster.

"Yes," Green replied, his back pressed up against the wall.

"That's too bad. You might have saved yourself some repair costs."

The creature reared up, eyes glowing red in the gloom. With a low roar, it smashed through the window to the bedroom, and locked its gaze onto the Doctor. Brittany picked up a chair, knowing that it would probably have no effect on the creature, watching as the shadow monster began to carefully enter the room. The Doctor stirred in his bed, but didn't wake.

There were muffled shouts from the hallway, and the door on the other side of the room burst open, Jack and Sandra entering at a run. Seeing the creature, they both stopped dead in their tracks. Sandra began to back towards the door, but Jack drew his revolver in one fluid movement, and lets off three shots at the creature. The shadow hissed at the captain, but didn't seem willing to attack. Instead, it leapt back out the window, and vanished into the night.

Jack holstered his revolver, and ran over to Brittany and Robert. "Are you alright?" he asked, touching Brittany on the shoulder.

"Nothing major. Just a little bit shaken," she replied, dropping the chair. Green didn't answer; sliding down the wall to sit on the ground, head in his hands.

With one last look at the man on the floor, Jack walked over to the bed, and carefully picked the Time Lord up and slung him over one shoulder. "We need to get him out of here," he explained when he caught the strange looks he was given. "Sandra? Have you got any DVD's he could watch?"

Sandra nodded, and led Jack out into the hall. After they had left, Brittany sat down next to Green. "You okay?" she asked, worried for the man.

He shook his head. "Who are you people?" he retorted. "A monster breaks right into this room, and you barely flinched. Are monsters so commonplace that you don't even worry when you see one? How dangerous must your life be if that shadow thing doesn't even scare you?"

Brittany frowned. "I wouldn't have put it like that," she muttered.

* * *

Jack ducked his head against the rain as he tramped up the road, mud pulling at his boots. The Doctor, still hanging limply over the captain's shoulder, was completely saturated, right down to his white converse sneakers. Jack had witnessed some of the Time Lord's angrier moments, or his happy ones, and even his sadness. But never before had he realised just how frail the Doctor could be. And he was so light. It took Jack hardly any effort to keep the Doctor balanced across his shoulder. He knew the Doctor was skinny, but hadn't realised just how skinny he really was.

The walk was actually quite relaxing for Jack. He let his mind unwind from the events of the previous few days. His current mission had him overly stressed out about the safety of Cardiff, and being yanked out into the middle of a forest without warning hadn't really helped with the already high stress levels.

Jack turned off the road after a few minutes of walking, heading into the forest. He found the TARDIS after about a minute, a blue box discretely parked between two trees. Keeping the Doctor steady with one hand, he used the other to dig his own TARDIS key out of his pocket. The interior of the TARDIS was glowing a warm orange, and with a sound resembling a sigh, Jack carefully placed the Doctor down on the chair.

He took a step back, and watched the Time Lord for a few seconds. Without warning, the Doctor's eyes suddenly opened, locking onto Jack. There was no greeting, no reassuring remark; only a question.

"It's the shadow, isn't it?"

Jack nodded. "And it nearly got you too, so I thought it best that we move you here."

The Doctor nodded, and yawned. "Glad someone has a clear head."

"I brought you this," Jack said, pulling DVD case out of his pocket. "Thought you might like to watch it."

The Doctor took it. "Mythbusters," he said enthusiastically. "Oh, I love this show. Thanks Jack."

Jack smiled, and went to leave to leave the TARDIS, but paused, and looked back. "Promise me you'll stay here."

"I'm not going anywhere Jack," the Doctor replied. "If I step foot outside the protection of the TARDIS, I'm putting myself at risk for another attack from the shadow, and the TARDIS is slightly disabled at the moment." He gazed at the time rotor, rising majestically up to the ceiling. "I mean, it won't take long to fix. All I have to do is reroute the primary command circuit back through a binary lock and loop it around in a –"

Jack held up a hand. "Spare me the explanation, I'm sure you can do it. I'll see you later, yeah?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yes. And that's a promise."

Jack smiled in return, and left the TARDIS, closing the door on the way out.

* * *

**A/N: And there you have it. The enemy revealed. Did I mention that this was originally a sequel to the Darkness Beneath? It was going to carry straight on from my first story, but I changed my plans and decided to write a series instead. Same basic storyline though.**


	8. Now What?

**A/N: I have a question. Which of these three story titles sound the most interesting: Sky Rider, Fractured Glass or Starship Sangalo? You'll be getting all three, but I was just wondering which one you think is the best sounding.

* * *

**

CHAPTER EIGHT: NOW WHAT?

"Did you see where it went?"

Sandra pointed. "That way, I think."

Brittany nodded. "Okay, Green? You come with me. Sandra, go warn everyone to stay inside, okay?"

"Sure," Sandra called, running around the corner of the building.

Green tightened his grip on his shotgun. "Can we kill it? I mean, is it possible to kill that thing?"

Brittany placed a hand on the shorter man's shoulder. "I don't know how, but we can do it. If only we had the Doctor." She sighed, and glanced over her shoulder. "If Jack were here, he would know what to do."

"But how? How can we kill it?"

"Sunlight," Brittany replied, wiping some wet hair out of her eyes. "But that seems to be in rather short supply at the moment." She pointed at the dark clouds roiling across the night sky. "Just our luck. We have to fight a creature that can only be killed by sunlight on a dark, stormy night."

A scream echoed out across the still night, reminding Brittany that they weren't out of danger yet. Robert raised his shotgun, peering through the rain into the shadows. Sandra appeared out of nowhere. "Run!" she shouted, grabbing them both by the arm and propelling through the space between two houses.

"What is it?" Brittany asked as they rounded a corner.

"That shadow thing, it's right behind me!" Sandra replied, not breaking her stride.

Green came to an abrupt halt. "No it isn't," he pointed out. "It's right in front of us."

The shadowy creature blocked their way forward, advancing with a low hiss. "Other way!" Brittany instructed, pulling them back the way they'd come. She'd gone barely two steps when the monster appeared right in front of her. "That was a bit fast," she muttered, a glance over her shoulder confirming that there was only one of the creatures.

Green fired off a shot, but the creature barely faltered. "Oh," he said, taking a step back.

"In here!" shouted Sandra, yanking open a one of the windows of the house to their left. "Quickly."

Brittany didn't need telling twice, diving through the open window with barely a second thought. Sandra pushed Green after her, then followed herself. Brittany slammed shut the window, but knew that wouldn't stop the creature for long.

She took in the details of the room with a quick glance. It was sparsely furnished, with a coffee table, a couch and two chairs. "That way," she said, pointing at a door, the only other exit from the room.

Glass shards sprayed out from the window as it shattered from the creature trying to push its way inside, but the three humans didn't falter. They ran out through the door and into a hallway, and Brittany chose to go left on a whim. The hall ended in another door, and Brittany pulled it open. Rain gusted inside as the three dashed out into the night.

Seconds later, the door snapped off its hinges as the monster followed them, roaring all the while. As soon as they had gotten outside, Sandra took the lead. "My house," she called, pulling Green and Brittany down the road. It didn't even take one minute to get to Sandra's house, but Brittany was sure that any second they would be eaten by the monster following them.

Thankfully, Sandra had left the front door unlocked, and it opened easily. "Basement," Sandra said, leading the way down a short flight of stair to a heavy wooden door. She dragged the door open, and ushered Brittany and Green inside. The door shut with a bang, and Sandra slid various bolts into place.

Brittany fumbled around in the dark for a bit, before her hand closed over a light switch. The lights came on, illuminating another short staircase, which led into a sizeable room.

Green looked around in amazement. "You never told me you had this," he said. "This must stretch under your whole house."

Sandra smiled, and jumped down the last couple of stairs. "Been here for years. I think it used to be a bomb shelter, but I changed it to suit my own purposes."

Brittany walked over to one of the walls and stood on her tips of her toes. "A bomb shelter with windows," she pointed out. "That doesn't seem that effective."

"I added the windows myself," Sandra replied. "It was too gloomy in here." She frowned, and looked back at the door. "That creature, can it get in?"

Brittany found a folding chair, and sat down on it. "Yes," she said, not wanting to keep any secrets. "But it has to find us first, so if we keep quiet, we should be safe. They hunt by sound," she explained. "Make too much noise and you're dead."

Green didn't seem that reassured. "How can you know so much about these monsters?"

"Because I've seen them before," she admitted, thinking back to the day that she had first met the Doctor. "Years ago, now. I thought I was going to die, but then he saved me. The Doctor saved me."

Sandra pulled up a couple more chairs, gesturing for Green to sit. "This Doctor, who is he?" she asked, sinking down into her own chair.

"He's…he's…I don't know how to explain it," Brittany said, leaning back in her chair. "He saves people. That's what he does. Beyond that, I really don't know who he is." She frowned inwardly. "He is still a stranger to me."

Sandra was about to speak again, when one of the windows recessed into the wall opened up, admitting two legs. The rest of captain Jack Harkness soon followed. "Well, hello," he said with a smile. "What's going on here, some kind of secret council in the basement?" He glanced around with an appreciative nod. "By the way, nice basement. You could survive a nuclear holocaust in here, if you removed the windows of course." He frowned at the window he had just entered through, and closed it with a snap.

Brittany smiled at him. "So, what are we going to do?"

Jack grabbed another chair, and sat down. "I was hoping you could tell me."


	9. The Truth

**CHAPTER NINE: THE TRUTH**

"Well, you're a great help, aren't you?" Sandra muttered, pulling a bottle off a nearby shelf. "Now we're stuck in a basement, with no plans and a giant monster trying to eat us. Fantastic." She unscrewed the cap of the bottle, and took a swig.

Brittany frowned at her. "You're a bundle of joy today, aren't you? And, I don't think now is the time to be drinking."

Sandra waved the bottle at her. "It's ginger beer."

Jack smiled around at everyone in the room. "At least I got the Doctor back to the TARDIS. He seemed happy enough to stay there and watch Mythbusters."

"Is the TARDIS safe? Can the shadow get in?" Brittany asked.

Jack shook his head. "Extrapolator shielding. Should be enough to keep the creature out."

Sandra stood up. "Well, can't we all go there? It'll be safe, and we could wait until this creature leaves."

Jack shook his head. "No. If we do that, it'll just find other people to kill, and then there'll be no stopping it. We have to kill it now."

"We could go to this safe place, this 'TARDIS' until we work out a plan, couldn't we?"

Jack stood up, and glared at Sandra. "No," he growled. "That's final. We're staying here."

Sandra took a step towards him. "Why?"

"Because I said so!" Jack roared, pushing the lady back into her chair. "Now listen to me. If you want to get out of here alive you have to listen to me. This creature hunts by sound, right? So, the more noise we make, the easier it will be for it to find us. We have to get through until morning, because that's when it's weakest; that's when we can kill it. Okay? Now, shut up."

Brittany sighed. "If that didn't attract the shadow, then I don't know what will," she muttered, and Jack glared at her.

Sandra seemed content to keep silent for the moment, but she didn't take her eyes off Jack. The tension in the air was palpable, and Green shifted uncomfortably. Whatever Sandra had dragged him into was far more dangerous than he had thought, and he just wanted out. Actually, he just wanted to go home to his nice warm bed, but his best chance of doing that lay with trusting Jack and Brittany to work something out. He was watching them now, not angrily, like Sandra, but curiously.

The captain stood up, and began to look at the shelves. "As the Doctor once told me, any years ago, we need to list our assets. What have we got, other than enough food to last us through a nuclear winter?"

Sandra held up her bottle. "Ginger beer. Lots of ginger beer."

Jack nodded. "Yeah, because that helps us. Anything else?"

"General emergency gear, you know, transistor radio, batteries, gas cooker. Stuff like that," Sandra added.

"Flashlight?" Brittany put in. "We really need flashlights."

Sandra sat quietly in thought for a moment. "I think so, yes. I'm pretty sure I packed a couple." She pointed at a small box nestled between tins of tomatoes and a carton of long-life milk. "In there."

Jack smiled, and rubbed his hands together. "Oh, now we're in business," he said, digging a couple of flashlights out of the box Sandra had indicated. "Things are looking good." Then he frowned. "Though you should never say that." He tapped his hand on the shelf. "Touch wood."

Brittany and Green both found something wooden to un-jinx themselves with, but Sandra just sat absolutely still.

"Touch wood," she muttered, something piecing itself together in her mind. "Touch wood…Torchwood."

Jack froze as he heard the word. "Excuse me?"

"Torchwood," she repeated, louder this time. Brittany heard the word, and stood up and backed away, knocking over her chair in the progress.

Sandra rose to her feet, and turned on Jack. "Torchwood," she said again. "Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood. It was you! You were at the university when I lost my job!"

Jack placed a hand on her shoulder. "Take it easy, I can explain," he started, but Sandra slapped his hand away.

"No," she cried, pointing an accusing finger at him. "I lost my job because you brought that – that – that thing into the university!"

She could remember it all very clearly now. She had been on the way to her car, and realised that she had left her coat in the lab. Going back to fetch it, she had found a very strange scene unfolding in front of her. Two figures had been wheeling a gurney across the room, one of them she recognised as Oakley Scott, one of the laboratory technicians, but the other man was someone she didn't recognise. He had been wearing a pink shirt, as she recalled. The creature on the gurney had been horrible; it looked like some grotesque amalgam between human and octopus. Tentacles sprouted out of places she knew tentacles should never grow. Even if she had wanted a closer look, which she didn't, she was propelled out of the room before she could think about what to do next.

It had been Jack Harkness who had pushed her out of that lab; the same face that was looking at her with concern right now had then been worried and anxious about her seeing whatever was on that gurney.

"Ianto," Jack had called over his shoulder before he had slammed the door in her face. "I need you to get it into liquid nitrogen so we can transport to Torchwood." Then her memory was once again blank until the moment the Head of the Science Division had told her that she no longer had a job.

"Who are you," she breathed, sinking back into her chair. "What was that thing?"

Jack pulled up a chair opposite the distraught women, and gave her a look that was meant to reassure her, but only helped to upset her further. "Last question first," he said, reasoning that it would be best just to tell Sandra what had happened, rather than try to keep any more secrets. "That 'thing' was an alien, a creature called a Drusildee. We recovered it from a crash site yesterday, and the closest place to take it was the university where you worked. You were never meant to see it."

"That's little consolation," Sandra retorted. "But why can't I remember it?"

Jack grimaced. "Torchwood wiped your memories of the event, and I'm really sorry about that," he said sincerely. "I really am. I know what it's like to have your memories taken from you, and I really wish we didn't have to do it, but if word got out that there was a secret government organisation hidden in Cardiff fighting aliens, well, you can imagine what would happen."

"Couldn't you just get people to sign the Official Secrets Act or something?" Green suggested, but he was shot down with a glare from Jack.

"They would still know we existed," the captain explained. "Eventually they would slip up and tell someone and poof! There goes our secret identity." He turned back to Sandra. "I can give you your memories back if you want them," he said. "I can take you back to Torchwood. We have methods of retrieving those suppressed memories, if you wanted them back."

Sandra was about to nod, but something else slipped out first. "You know, I've seen that big, black SUV roaring around Cardiff, but never knew what the word on the side meant. Now that I do, it seems like Cardiff is a lot stranger than I had thought."

Jack smirked. "You got that right."


	10. The Perfect Cure

**CHAPTER TEN: THE PERFECT CURE**

With a flick of his hand, the Doctor poured a spoonful of sugar into his tea. He sighed heavily, and grabbed the porcelain cup with both of his hands; slender fingers interlacing around the handle. While he had waited for the kettle to boil, he had taken to wandering the halls of the TARDIS, with only the humming of the ship herself for company.

He just felt so helpless, cooped up inside his ship, knowing that there was a dangerous creature out there, and that Jack and Brittany were stuck outside with it. He just itched to run out there and help them, but he couldn't, not without putting himself at risk from the shadow.

Because that's what it wanted. Him. It had touched his mind, and he had reached out and saw its thoughts. It had one of the simplest motivations in the universe, but that didn't make it any less deadly. The shadow was out for revenge, firstly for when it had been beaten on Midnight, and denied passage to civilisation, and for the second time in Skylark City on Sydoriv, deep within the Crusader Caves.

He seemed to be rather very good at making enemies. There were so many of them now, so many people that wanted a piece of him. Luckily, no matter how hard they tried, he had beaten them all, and probably made himself some more enemies in the bargain. But still, he slept soundly, knowing that there were planets up there, in the sky, safe and sound, because of his enemy making abilities.

The Doctor closed the door to the console room with one of his red-sneakered feet, and balanced his cup of tea on the lone chair next to the console. He pulled his sonic screwdriver out of the pocket of his now blue suit, and pulled up one of the floor panels. When Jack had brought him into the TARDIS, he had been sopping wet, now, after a quick change of clothing and deft use of a hairdryer, he was completely dry, and that's how he preferred it to be. Water just made things messy, and you could catch colds from being wet. He didn't want to catch a cold.

Taking a sip from his hot tea, the Doctor inserted himself into the crawlspace under the console. "Right," he muttered to himself, buzzing his sonic screwdriver at bits of circuitry. "Which one of you is the command circuit?"

He prodded at a curvy circuit board, and was rewarded with an electrical shock than ran up his arm. Not that one. He fiddled around with some wires, and stuck them in other places where they probably weren't meant to go, and ignored the protesting groans from the TARDIS. He knew what he was doing; at least, he was assuring himself that he knew what he was doing. He actually didn't have a clue about which bits to touch first, so he just took a risk and dove in headfirst.

Whatever he did, it must have had some effect, because the TARDIS hummed loudly after he plugged what could have passed for a printer into something that could have quite possibly been an old toaster. He jumped in surprise as small lights flickered on inside the crawlspace, knocking his head on the floor above him.

With much muttering on his part, he slid backwards out of the crawlspace and, one hand pressed over the lump that was forming on the back of his head, checked the readout on the console's screen. It was showing the normal array of spinning Gallifreyan symbols, but there was something there that hadn't been before; a small status bar, creeping along one edge of the screen.

The Doctor tapped his finger against the status bar, and read the tiny letters next to it. The bar had reached five percent, and was slowly rising as the engines powered up. He grinned. All he had to do know was wait for the engines to fully charge up, and then he could fly the TARDIS off into time and space. After he had defeated the shadow and picked up Jack and Brittany.

He drank down the rest of his tea in one gulp, and stowed the cup in his pocket until he could be bothered to take it back to the kitchen. Then he picked up the DVD Jack had left him.

For some reason, the Doctor had always liked Mythbusters. It might have had something to do with the fact that they blew up quite a lot of things on that show, or it might have been the way they used science to solve their mysteries. The show was completely irrelevant to a time traveller; he could easily go back in time and find out whether the myths were true or not, but it was still enjoyable to watch.

He chose a disk at random, and slotted it into a DVD player on the console. He can't remember when he installed it; probably when he got annoyed with not being able to do repairs and watch movies at the same time. Using his feet to manoeuvre the screen around to face his chair, he pulled a large packet of popcorn out of his trouser pocket with his free hands.

On the screen, there was a menu that was prompting him to choose an episode. He frowned at it, and picked an option at random. He wasn't really paying attention to the show as it started playing on screen – he was busy trying to think of plans that he could use to defeat the shadow. All the ones he had so far involved either him leaving the TARDIS, keeping the creature occupied until dawn or an excessive amount of rubber bands.

If it had been daytime, the creature would have been much easier to contain, and get rid of. All that radiation that the sun poured out, all those X-rays, microwaves, gamma rays and UV rays, they could have killed the creature in a flash. But at night, the radiation still got through, but in smaller doses, amounts that the creature could survive. With cloud cover, the radiation was practically halved. Unless they could work a miracle, the Doctor couldn't think of anything to do.

He must have been paying attention to something the Mythbusters were saying, because he caught the word 'microwave' and suddenly concentrated on the screen. He continued to watch with increasing delight, as a plan formed in his mind. The Doctor didn't need a miracle; he just needed a DVD to tell him what he had to do.

And the best thing about this plan was that it was completely plausible.


	11. Microwave Friendly

**CHAPTER ELEVEN: MICROWAVE FRIENDLY**

Smiling at Sandra's comment about the car, Jack opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off as there was a loud crash from upstairs. Everyone in the room froze, not daring to make a noise, in case it was the monster coming to find them. Finally, Brittany spoke.

"That doesn't sound like the shadow," she whispered, breaking the silence.

"Yeah," Jack agreed, standing up. "In fact, it sounds like…"

As he fell silent, Brittany heard the noise properly for the first time. It wasn't a shadow, that was easy to tell. For one thing, shadows didn't make a metallic groaning noise that sounded like a sheet of rusty metal being dragged over the back of stray cat that was screeching at the top of its lungs. There was only one thing in the entire universe that made that noise and to Brittany, that noise sounded like the sweetest music.

She leapt up the stairs, yanked the basement door open, and ran towards the noise, which was growing louder by the second. Jack was hot on her heels, while Sandra and Green were slower in coming, though following nonetheless.

The sound was coming from the spare bedroom at the end of the hall, and as Brittany hauled the bedroom door open, the groaning noise cut out with a thump, like ancient machinery falling into place.

In the centre of the room, barely small enough to fit and looking completely out of place, was a blue police box. The source of the crashing noise was revealed to be a freestanding wardrobe that had been displaced by the police box's appearance. Sandra and Green stared at the box in amazement, but to Jack and Brittany this was commonplace. They were used to the TARDIS, although the timing had surprised them.

The door of the TARDIS creaked inwards, and the Doctor stuck his head out, wild-eyed and frizzy-haired. "Jack, Brittany!" he said happily. "Fancy seeing you here." He pulled the door open further, and held it in place with his foot.

Jack chuckled. "You fixed her then?" he said, nodding at the spaceship in disguise. "That was fast."

"I'm an efficient worker," the Doctor replied, looking hurt.

"Say that again, but with a straight face."

Brittany stepped between the two friends. "That's all well and good, but if you hadn't noticed, we're kind of in the middle of a crisis here," she pointed out. "I don't know about you, but I'd prefer not to be eaten by an alien monster."

The Doctor nodded in agreement. "Yes. And, I have thought of the most brilliant and amazing plan. There's only one problem."

Jack coughed.

The Doctor frowned at him. "Alright, there's more than one, but there's one big one. I can't leave the TARDIS."

Sandra gestured towards the police box that, to her, had magically appeared in the middle of her spare bedroom. "And that box is 'the TARDIS'? It looks a bit cramped in there. And what the hell is a police public call box?"

"Questions, questions," the Time Lord said, ignoring her queries. "I don't have the time right now. This is no time for mass panic." He ducked back inside the box, the door swinging shut behind him.

Instead of going in after him, Jack politely waited for the Time Lord to reappear. He was just starting to worry, when the door opened again, revealing the Doctor, panting heavily.

"Here we are," he said between gasps, holding up a DVD case in one hand, and a thick textbook in the other. "One idea, curtesy Mythbusters," he continued, waving the DVD case around. "Which lead to one brilliant plan, if I do say so myself." He waved the thick book around for about half a second before Brittany snatched it out of his hands.

She frowned at the vibrant black and yellow cover. "Gun building for dummies?" she read. "Since when did they have a book that taught you how to build guns?"

"Since guns were invented," the Doctor pointed out, dashing back into the TARDIS and reappearing within seconds with a stack of books in his hands. "Lots of reading to do."

Jack peered at a few of the titles. "Particle acceleration for dummies, cosmic radiation for dummies. Household appliances, welding, circuitry…what's all this for?"

"I'm building a gun," the Doctor pointed out, rather obviously.

"I'm going to buy you a shirt that has 'my name is Captain Obvious' printed in bold letters across the front," Brittany suggested.

The Doctor frowned at her. "What have I told you about the Captain Obvious thing?"

Jack sighed and shook his head. They were being stalked by shadow monster, and yet those two still find the time to argue. Sometimes, Brittany reminded him very much of Donna Noble; they both had the 'let's annoy the Doctor just for the hell of it' gene.

"Excuse me," Jack interjected, taking the textbook from Brittany's hands and thumping it heavily on top of the Doctor's pile. Ignoring the Time Lord's complaints, he continued to speak, before another argument broke out. "But just how is a gun going to help us? The shadow can only be hurt by sunlight, it's not as if…" He trailed off, and looked at the book the Doctor's finger was pointing at. "Alright, I'll give you that," he said, moving the Time Lord's hand away from _Cosmic Radiation for Dummies_. "But how do you build a gun that emits cosmic radiation?"

"The same way the Mythbusters did it, only this time, it'll work." The Doctor paused, and thought hard for a moment. "Do you know what types of radiation the sun emits?"

"Radio waves, UV rays, gamma rays," Brittany supplied with a shrug. "We all learned that at school. If we went to school," she added, shooting Jack a look that just dared him to talk back. He just rolled his eyes at her.

"It's all well and good to build a Gamma gun, but does anyone around here happen to have anything producing anywhere near enough gamma radiation to hurt something?" the Doctor pointed out. He got no reply, which was what he expected. "Exactly," he continued. "That's why I have thought of an ingenious and altogether marvellous plan. Answer me this: what is one thing that people do every day?"

"Breathe?" Brittany suggested.

"Guess again."

"Sleep," Jack proposed.

"Try again."

"Walk?" Sandra tried.

"Have another go."

Everone looked at Green, but the medical doctor just shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "Eat?"

"Correctomundo!" the Doctor cried, juggling his stack of textbooks so he could point at Robert. "Eat! And what do you use to cook food? A microwave!"

Comprehension dawned of Jack and Brittany's faces, although Green and Sandra seemed even more confused than they had been before. "A microwave gun," realised Jack. "A gun that emits microwaves. That is fantastic."

"You could use it to fry things," Brittany mused, much to the Doctor's apparent annoyance.

"You could, and that's what they tried to do on Mythbusters. It didn't work. But I can do it. All I need is a few microwaves." The Doctor smiled at Jack and Sandra, and both humans took a step backwards.

"It never ends, does it?" Jack complained.

The Doctor just grinned at him. "Could you and Sandra bring me as many microwaves as you can carry? The more the merrier of course, but any old number will do."

Jack sighed, and gave Sandra a questioning look. She shrugged, and followed him down the hall. Brittany and Green looked at each other.

"What about us?" Brittany asked.

The Doctor nodded at the hall. "You two go find all the electrical appliances in the house. Keep those eyes peeled." He disappeared back inside the TARDIS.

Brittany frowned at Green who shrugged and walked off. "Men," she lamented, and followed him.

* * *

**A/N: There was actually an episode of Mythbusters dedicated to microwave myths, and they really did build a microwave gun. It didn't work, which was a shame, but we all know what the Doctor can do...**


	12. Shadows

**CHAPTER TWELVE: SHADOWS**

Brittany pulled the backing off a telephone handset, and removed a small chip. "This?" she asked, and the Doctor nodded at her.

"Oh yes, that'll do," he said, readjusting his glasses. They were perched precariously on the end of his nose, and always seemed to be on the verge of slipping off, but the Doctor managed to rescue them every time before they had the chance.

With a lot of energetically welding on his part, the Doctor's microwave gun was starting to take shape. Brittany had already dismantled one microwave for him; Sandra's own cooker from downstairs.

The floor of the TARDIS was a mess; there were sheets everywhere, both to protect the ship and stop pieces of destroyed appliances from slipping through the grating. Green had brought up two armloads of electrical gear from Sandra's house, including a small portable DVD player, a toaster, a pen with a LED light in it and a blender, just to name a few. Robert hadn't been allowed inside the TARDIS, so Brittany had to ferry all the gear inside herself.

"How's that look?" the Doctor asked, winding a wire around a lump of metal the size of her fist, and lifting up the gun. He aimed the gun at her, and sighted down the barrel. "Hands up," he instructed.

Brittany folded said limbs and glared at the childish Time Lord. "Having fun, are you?"

"No," he muttered, as if on cue, and carefully put the gun back on the ground, returning his full attention to making it ever more complicated.

"Sure," Brittany whispered to herself, but loud enough so that the Doctor could easily have heard. She liked taunting him. She didn't know why, but it was fun to taunt the know-it-all alien. Imagine what Sally would say if she could see Brittany now.

"Brittany, could you hand me that big spanner?" the Doctor asked, breaking her out of her reverie.

"Yeah, 'course," she replied, handing a heavy steel spanner to the alien. He took it off her but instead of using it to tighten a resistant bolt, he used it to bash his gun-in-progress. Once it was heavily dented, and apparently satisfactory to the Doctor, he dropped the spanner, and started welding on some more wires.

There was a knock on the door, and the Doctor nodded at her. "Could you go get that?"

"Yeah, 'course," she repeated, getting up off the ground and ambling over to the door. However, when she opened it, she didn't see Green holding more appliances like she had expected, but instead, Jack Harkness was standing there, a Santa's hat on his head, a baby's pram in front of him and an extremely embarrassed look on his face.

"The hat was Sandra's idea," he clarified, before Brittany could wound his dignity more than it already had been.

Brittany peered into the pram, and counted five microwaves, all nestled in next to each other, layers of protective blankets cushioning them against knocks and bumps. "What's his name?" she asked in her cutest baby voice.

"Microwave," Jack growled, not amused at all by her attempt to make fun of him. "Take this in to the Doctor while I go throttle Sandra."

"Yeah, 'course," Brittany said once again, dragging the pram inside, and slamming the door in the captain's face.

Jack frowned at the blue panelling on the door for a few long seconds, before ripping off the Santa hat and stalking off, towards the door. When he was halfway down the hall, Green dashed past him, a fair amount of electrical gear clutched in his arms. Jack gave the shorter man a small nod, before walking up to where Sandra was sitting at the top of the stairs. She had her back to him, Green's shotgun in her hands, and hadn't noticed him approaching.

He was right behind her before she heard him, and by then it was too late. He rammed the Santa hat over her head, pulling it down to cover her eyes. She struggled to get it off as Jack sat down next to her, revolver sitting on his lap.

"There was no call for that," she said when she finally pulled the hat off her head. "What would have happened if that shadow thing had come while you were having your fun?"

"It didn't, so let's leave it at that," Jack shot back, checking how much ammunition he had for his revolver. Even though he knew it probably wouldn't help at all, it was some comfort to know that he did actually have a weapon.

Sandra checked the shotgun to make sure it did have shells loaded into it, then turned to Jack. "How are they doing?" she asked, hiking a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the spare bedroom.

"Not sure," Jack said. "I didn't get a chance to look. Brittany looked annoyed though, so that's probably a good sign." He saw Sandra's blank expression, and added, "She isn't getting to do much, which means the Doctor has everything under control."

Sandra nodded. "Yeah, I hope so," she sighed. "This is just so…alien to me. No pun intended," she added.

Jack shrugged. "That's always how it is when you first meet the Doctor. I suppose you kind of get used to it."

Sandra pulled a bottle of ginger beer from her pocket first offering it to Jack and, when he refused, taking a swig from it herself. "When did you first meet him?" she asked, wrinkling her nose at the bubbles.

"Oh, years ago now. I was a different man back then. Well, so was he," Jack replied, twiddling his fingers absently. "It's funny, but whenever I see him, there's always some kind of danger. Than man is a trouble magnet on legs."

Sandra raised her bottle in mock toast. "And here's to that!" she said.

Jack smiled. "Hear, hear."

There was a crash from downstairs, like something heavy being knocked over. They both leapt to their feet. "What was that?" Sandra said, bringing the shotgun up defensively.

"It was probably just Green, being clumsy," Jack suggested.

Sandra shook her head, and backed up the hallway. "Did you see Green pass us? Because I sure didn't." She kicked open the door, and stepped back into that room, hidden from sight. Jack did the same, stepping into a study on the other side of the hall.

"Here we go again," he muttered, holding his revolver in both hands.


	13. Dangerous Radiation

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN: DANGEROUS RADIATION**

When the shadow finally came, it came slowly and cautiously, and that put things in Jack and Sandra's favour. It crept up the stairs, one step at a time, unsure of whether it was going to meet some form of resistance or not. Sandra's hiding place was closer to the door than Jack's, and that was also a very good thing. Being hit by a stray shotgun pellet wasn't high on his list of things to do. Neither was getting stuck in the middle of Wales in some person's house about to be attacked by a shadow alien, but you had to have some perspective. You couldn't get everything you wanted.

The creature was almost upon Sandra when she stepped out and fired one shell at it. She stepped back into hiding as soon as she had fired, and the creature screeched in pain, backing down the corridor. Some of the pellets had blown straight through the creature, but its shadowy body absorbed most instantaneously.

Before the creature could attack again, Jack stepped out, and fired a couple of shots, aiming for the eyes. He couldn't be sure if he hit the monster or not, but he certainly made some effect, because the creature backed down the stairs, and refused to show itself.

Jack and Sandra waited for a very long minute, but the creature didn't come back, so they relaxed and stepped out of their respective hiding places. "That wasn't too bad," Sandra chanced, reloading the shotgun.

Jack shook his head. "If there's one thing I've learnt in all my years that nothing is ever that easy," he said, walking back towards the spare room, still keeping one eye on the empty stairwell. When they reached the bedroom, everything looked normal; the TARDIS was still there, and Green was sitting on the bed, looking worried.

Jack frowned, and holstered the revolver, heading towards the TARDIS. He tried the door, but found it locked. He knocked on the door. It was then half the wall was ripped off, opening the room up to the lashing winds and driving rain of the still raging thunderstorm. The creature roared triumphantly, perching on the side of the room that was minus a wall.

Jack drew his revolver again, and fired all of his remaining four shots at once. The creature barely flinched, advancing towards the three humans huddled in the centre of the room. Sandra had enough time to fire a single shot.

The creature covered the distance with phenomenal speed, trying to swipe the weapon out of her hands. Sandra refused to let go, so the weapon dragged her across the room with it. She slammed into the wall, and blinked woozily, dazed from her crash.

While the creature had been distracted by Sandra, Jack had enough time to order Green to get out of the way and load two more bullets into his revolver. The shadow started to go after Sandra, who was still sitting where she had landed, swaying dizzily. Jack was not about to let anyone die, so he fired at the monster with his last two rounds. He realised the flaw in this plan too late as he discarded his gun, and backed up against the TARDIS, the creature advancing towards him with a throaty growl.

"This was obviously not –" he began, but before he could finish, the door that had been supporting his weight swung inwards and deposited him on the ground.

The Doctor looked down at the captain with apparent surprise. "You're dirtying my doorstep, Jack," the Time Lord tutted, stepping over Jack, and confronting the shadow.

"Well, let's go about this nice and civilly, shall we?" the Doctor started, his gun clasped loosely in his hands. "What you're doing is restricted by article three hundred and six of the Shadow Proclamation, passed in the year Delta one two." He smiled benignly at the hissing monster in front of him. "That's the one about stowaways, by the way."

The Doctor absently flicked some dust off his shoulder. "There's also the matter of article four, passed in the year Epsilon five point three. That's the article that deals with murder. And I have so much evidence of the murders you've committed.

"But, since I'm a kind, caring and, most of all, forgiving kind of guy, I'm going to give you one more chance. This is it, after this there are no more chances. This is your last warning, got that? I am offering you an opportunity to go home, back to Midnight, back to that planet tainted by the Xtonic star. That's all I'm asking. That you go home, peacefully, and we'll forget this ever happened. You go home, and I won't be forced to hurt you." He lifted his gun to make the point. "So, what do you say?"

The creature took a step forward. "I say no," it said, in a startlingly human voice, and this time, everyone in the room could hear it. "At least, not without killing you first."

The Doctor looked at the creature with such sadness in his eyes. "Then I'm sorry for this. I am so very sorry." He raised the gun, rested the butt against his shoulder, aimed then fired. The beam from the gun was completely invisible, but the effects on the creature were instantaneous. It started off as a small welt that grew deeper and wider, eating away at the very monster itself. The creature stopped, and looked at the burn that was spreading across its body. Within seconds, all that remained was a wispy curl of shadow that faded into the carpet, and a hiss that would haunt Sandra and Green's dreams for many nights yet.

"There we are," the Doctor said, after a very long silence. "All finished up, nice and proper." He rubbed his sleeve on the gun, and chucked it at Brittany with an indifference that could have matched that of elephant talking to an ant. Brittany fumbled with the gun, but didn't drop it, fearing that it might go off if she did.

The Doctor jammed his hands into the pockets of his blue pants, and wandered over to the missing wall. On the horizon, the faintest smudge of orange could be seen, smeared like marmalade along the bottom of the otherwise dark storm clouds. The Doctor like marmalade analogies. In fact, he liked anything to do with marmalade full stop. He made a mental note to buy some more.

The four humans came to stand next to him and watch the sunrise. "Is it over?" Jack asked at last.

"Yes. It is over," the Doctor echoed. And he smiled as he watched the sun rise over the horizon and break the storm clouds apart.


	14. A Mystery to Solve

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN: A MYSTERY TO SOLVE**

The clean up was going to take a long time, and the Doctor just wished to be going. He normally didn't hand around long enough to have to help clean any mess up, but Jack was refusing to go until Sandra agreed to go with him, and Sandra was refusing to go with him unless her house was cleaned up, at least partially. It did make a kind of sense to the Doctor, but that didn't mean he had to take part. Even if it meant they had to hang around for an extra couple of hours, he would still not get involved. He didn't do domestic, and cleaning up a destroyed house was close enough to domestic for him.

No, he was content just to watch. It wasn't boring. It was rather exciting in its own way, and he smirked to himself as Brittany squirted bleach all over Jack. That would definitely have put stains on that overcoat of his, but the captain had prudently taken it off, expecting a situation exactly like this.

Jack retreated from the attack, throwing a sponge at the Doctor's newest companion in self-defence. Brittany lost interest in pursuing Jack, and began chatting with Sandra, giving the captain enough time to come sit next to the Doctor on top of the kitchen table.

"Hello Jack," the Doctor said contentedly, happier now than he had been since the Noble affair, as he referred to it in his mind. He had been alone for far too long after Donna Noble, and it was doing him good to have another human messing up the place every now and then.

"Well, you seem happy all of a sudden," Jack observed, picking up the subtle mood change.

The Doctor smiled a genuine warm smile. "Yeah. I suppose I am Jack, I suppose I am." The pair sat in silence for a long time, watching Brittany flick splinters at the back of Green's head, much to Sandra's amusement. It was such a simple thing, just to sit and watch without interfering, and the Doctor couldn't remember the last time he had just observed, instead of involving himself.

Jack ruffled the Time Lord's hair, knowing how much the alien hated that. "So, any theories?" he asked as the Doctor tried to restyle his hair back to how it had originally been.

"On what?" the alien asked, trying to get his unruly hair to sweep forward, but it was simply refusing to do what he wanted.

"You know what," Jack replied, running his fingers once through the Doctor's hair, causing it to stick straight up as if it had been electrified.

The Doctor gave up on trying to fix his hair, instead ruffling it and letting it fall back into place by itself. "I do know how the shadow got here, other than that, only theories." He sighed, racking his brains for any possible answer to their current dilemma. "The shadow came with us, in the TARDIS."

Jack frowned. "How? What do you mean by that?"

"It's a shadow Jack, how do you think?" the Doctor replied. "It must have hidden itself in one of our shadows, and smuggled itself on board. It would have been weak after it was pushed into the glowworm light, but if it acted fast, I suppose it is possible that it found our shadows and hid, just the tiniest sliver, biding its time, growing stronger over the weeks. But that wasn't what pulled us here. I don't know what caused that. Absolutely no clue."

"Not even an idea? Not a smidgen of anything even resembling a theory?"

"Not yet," the Doctor said succinctly. "But whatever it is, it doesn't feel like it did it out of kindness."

Jack shrugged it off. "Still, alls well that ends well." He ducked and a sponge flew through the air right where his head had been. "Might have said that too soon," he chuckled, keeping an eye out for any more attacks from Brittany. "I don't know why you picked that one up."

The Doctor laughed. "That makes two of us. As far as companions go, she's one of the most annoying I've ever had. She does that on purpose, though why, I don't know. I should just dump her on a moon and be done with it."

Jack punched the skinny alien in the shoulder. "How dare you even say such a thing! You would never do that."

"No." The Doctor smiled at the idea of Brittany being stuck on a moon, with only rocks to annoy, but then another thought occurred to him, one that had been nagging him ever since he had met her. "Jack, I don't know how to say it, but Brittany is different from everyone else I've ever met," he said, not quite sure why he was saying it. "There's just something about her that I just can't put my finger on, something that should be familiar, but isn't."

He suddenly felt cold, an involuntary shiver running up his spine. "Something is coming Jack. Coming from across the stars, and this danger is just a taste of what's to come. When it gets here, then we'll have something to worry about."

Jack didn't know what that meant, but knew the Doctor's words had deep meaning, deeper than even the Time Lord could know at this time. But whatever event the Doctor was referring to was a long way off, but once it got here, it would be all or nothing.

Chilled by this revelation, Jack stood up. "Well, I better get back to clearing up. You enjoy yourself."

The Doctor watched him go. "Yeah," he said, although he didn't mean it. Just for a few minutes, he had been able to forget all the danger, all the horror and all the sadness that was his life, but that was it. Only a few minutes relief, and then he had to go back and face reality.

Whatever was coming wasn't going to be friendly, and the Doctor could only help but think that the events of the past few days were linked. What the Thoraln had said about the 'Golden One' activated something hidden deep within hundreds of years of memories, and while he didn't consciously realise what it was, he knew that it really wasn't good.

Nowhere near.


	15. All Aboard

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN: ALL ABOARD**

The Doctor was getting impatient, and the clean up was basically finished, so Jack decided that now was the time to leave, before any new form of trouble could find its way to the Doctor. He passed around a couple of insistent looks, and it seemed like Sandra agreed with him. The four humans trooped upstairs with the minimum amount of fuss, to find the Doctor sitting on the bed in the spare room, playing sullenly with a blue yo-yo.

They had just watched him wrap it in a complex loop around his head, and then flick it back at the floor again, so it looked like it was spinning in about six directions at once. Jack caught it between thumb and forefinger as it reached the end of its string, and smiled at the Doctor.

"Oh, Jack, hi," the alien said, not realising that the others had entered the room. "What is it now?"

"We're ready to head off now, if that's okay," Jack replied, releasing the plastic toy and stepping back.

"Going?" The Doctor jumped to his feet and, with a flick of his wrist, sent the yo-yo spinning back up the string into his hand and continuing on into his pocket all in one movement. "Well, do we have three passengers? Am I right."

Sandra nodded. "You're right. I'm going to Torchwood with Jack. Not that I'm staying, mind you," she added, pointing an accusatory finger at the captain. "Just give me my memories back, and that's it, okay?"

Jack spread his arms apart in a gesture of complete and utter innocence. "Okay. Nothing to it." He turned back to the Doctor. "First stop, Cardiff."

The Doctor held up a hand. "Not quite. There's somewhere I want to take you first." There was a very awkward silence where both Brittany and Jack pondered the significance of this statement.

Jack had a really bad feeling about whatever the Doctor was planning, but then again, he always had a bad feeling when the Doctor was flying. The closet description you could get to this feeling was airsickness.

Brittany, however, didn't care what happened either way. If it was a danger-filled and exciting trip, she could always tease the Doctor about it later, and if it was relaxing, well, that went without saying.

They both started to talk at the same time, but the Doctor silenced them both with a gesture from his hand. "Before you say anything, it's just going to be a short thank you trip, to a completely harmless planet. A tourist destination, in fact, which I generally avoid."

He smiled, and pulled a key out of his pocket, fitting it into the lock on the TARDIS door. "If you really want to know, it's a planet made out of chocolate." He pushed open the door and disappeared inside. Jack and Brittany both gave each other looks that said that this could only end badly.

They let Sandra enter the timeship first, following after her, leaving Green to stand by himself in the middle of the room. Brittany gave him a small wave and shouted goodbye before the door shut behind her.

If Robert thought that it must be cramped inside the police box, those thoughts were quickly pushed aside as the light began atop the box began to flash, and the TARDIS disappeared from the room. Staring open mouthed at where the box had been, Green knew that there was only one certain thing about this whole night.

It was going to be extremely difficult to explain.


	16. Never Again

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN: NEVER AGAIN**

The air was still in the Welsh city of Cardiff. It was the calm after a storm, and it had driven many of the city's residents out into the streets. There was an agonised squeal as the TARDIS fought to impose herself onto reality, and she finished materialising with a gloopy squelch.

The blue box was covered in some kind of brown goo, which was sizzling and spitting in the midday sun. The doors to the box creaked inwards with a squelching noise, revealing four very annoyed figures.

Jack was the first to step out onto the pavement, brown goo all through his hair and clothes. "That is the last time I ever let you choose the destination," he said, pointing an accusatory finger at the skinny man who followed him out.

"How was I to know that the volcano would erupt?" the Doctor pointed out, rubbing his head in an attempt to get rid of the melted chocolate in his hair. He only succeeding in messing up his hair even further, making it harder for himself in the long run.

Brittany and Sandra came out of the TARDIS behind him, as equally covered in chocolate as the two men. "I think people are staring," Brittany said, carefully closing the door, trying to keep as much of the brown sludge out of the inside of the ship as possible.

"It's not every day that they get to see four people covered in chocolate emerge from a small blue box likewise covered in said sweet substance," the Doctor said, nodding his head back at the TARDIS. "I would probably stare if I saw it."

Brittany shrugged; admitting defeat this one time, although the look she gave the Doctor said that she was going to get him back for this, possibly in the form of confiscation of personal belongings, i.e. bananas.

With a shake of his head at the silent threat from Brittany, Jack clapped a hand on Sandra's shoulder. "Well, we best be off," he said, waving a hand at the imposing bulk of the Cardiff Millennium Centre behind them. "A lot to do. Better reassure Gwen and Ianto that I am okay, and get Sandra into the hub."

The Doctor nodded, tucking a hand into his pocket. "Well, you take care," he said, turning back to the TARDIS.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor looked back over his shoulder. "Yes Captain?"

"You be careful."

"I will."

Jack gave him a small salute, before turning away with Sandra, and making his way across the pavement towards the Millennium Centre. The Doctor watched them for a few seconds, before pushing open the door to the TARDIS.

"Showers all round," he announced as he pushed Brittany inside. "Can't have you messing up the place."

* * *

Brittany re-entered the console room a few minutes later, still rubbing her hand through her wet hair. The Doctor was already there, hair dry and immaculately styled, as always. Sometimes she envied that man. No matter how much they went through, his hair always seemed to remain as it had been before they had gotten themselves into danger.

She noticed that he had something in his hands, and when he held it out to her, she saw that it was a small silver key suspended on a thin chain. "Thought you might want this," he said, offering the key to her.

She held out a hand to receive it, admiring how it glowed softly in the orange light. "I can keep this?"

The Doctor nodded, turning to face the console, knocking a lever into place with his foot. "Yeah, why not," he said, flicking a few switches. "Oh, I'm going to regret this later."

Brittany hung the key around her neck, next to her round pendant. "So," she said, leaning on the console. "Where are we off to next?"

"Well," the Doctor started, absently twiddling a knob. "I thought since Captain Cook is such a good mate of mine, we could take a little trip to see him. What do you think?"

Brittany pondered this for a moment. "He was that explorer bloke, wasn't he? Alright then. But I'll drive."

The Doctor didn't seem to quite understand what she'd said. "Excuse me?"

"I'll drive," Brittany repeated, tapping one of the levers. "This is the handbrake, isn't it?"

While Brittany's wandering fingers explored the console, the Doctor was debating silently in his mind whether this was a good idea or not. Of course, she was going to be under his supervision the whole time, and yes, he had just trusted her with a key. Why shouldn't he teach her how to pilot the TARDIS? On the other hand, he didn't want to really share the knowledge with anyone else. The TARDIS was his ship, his only real companion in the universe, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to share her. It didn't take the voices in his head very long to come to a unanimous decision, and exactly seven seconds after Brittany had asked her question he pointed to a lever on the side of the console.

"I have no idea of why I'm doing this, but okay. This here is the gravitic anomyliser."

Brittany smiled in pure delight, and pointed to another piece of the console. "And this?"


	17. Next Time

NEXT TIME…

Three creatures filled the screen. They looked at each other, and the middle one started to speak again. "We are the Sky Riders," it said in perfect, unaccented Galactic Standard. "We come seeking a deal. We want only one thing. We want the Time Lord. We want the Doctor."

"And what do we get in return?"

The lead creature leant closer to the screen. "Your planet will be spared."

* * *

"How you can be ignorant of what planet you're on, I don't know, but I suppose I better tell you. This is the planet Messaline, a human-hath colony."

* * *

"Great job," Brittany hissed, as the Doctor lead her towards a stairwell. "You've just landed us in the middle of a war."

* * *

."They're coming!" the newcomer shouted, catching everyone's attention. "The Tigers are coming!"

"Tigers?" Brittany whispered to the Doctor, who only shrugged in response.

As soon as the man had shouted his warning, everyone in the room had leapt to their feet, personal belongings in their hands. There was a frenzied dash for the door, and before the Doctor had a chance to ask what was going on, the room was empty.

"I wonder what's gotten into them?" Brittany said, staring around at the vacant chairs.

The Doctor frowned, genuine concern in his expression. "I wonder indeed."

* * *

The Doctor stood up, and started to pace backwards and forwards, hands deep inside his trouser pockets. "This war doesn't feel right. It's like someone is messing with time, moulding it like plasticine."

* * *

The Doctor quickly judged the distance between them and the soldiers, and was satisfied that they could make it.

"Okay," he whispered. "RUN!!"

* * *

The Doctor and Brittany will return in **Sky Riders** for some more world saving adventure. Tune in next time to find out what is going to happen! The tension is unbearable!


End file.
